The 1990’s was a revolutionary decade for modern music. As a generation of pop-culture obsessed latch-key kids emerged from their sugar-fueled Saturday-morning cartoon ADHD haze, we plugged our guitars and turntables into Marshall stacks and let it all out. Many of us never stopped. Lewis Cuthbert-Ashton (aka Lewca) is here to tell our story.
Lewca is a UK-bred and France-based musician who was rocking the stages of European dive-bars since before Kurt Cobain picked up his first Fender Jaguar. In 2020 he introduced his uniquely crafted solo project with the EP 3 Kids & a Mortgage. Together with Parisian drum & bass DJ and producer S.O.A.P, Lewca has created a sonic world of cockney hip-hop, EDM, and goofball indie-rock experimentation.
Friday Night Rockstar is the brand new album from Lewca, released worldwide via all major streaming services on December 16, 2022. On the record, he sings, raps, whispers and screams the plight of a middle-aged Gen X rocker, trying to squeeze a bit of harmless debauchery into his otherwise mundane suburban existence. The record is 39 minutes of witty, rude, insightful and intentionally directionless fun.
The record opens with the delicately titled “Such a Cunt”. Imagine a latter-day Johnny (Rotten) Lydon singing for the Boomtown Rats, produced by Skrillex. Lewca channels that Sex Pistols energy with the song’s deceptively insightful carpe-diem lyrical theme, “You only get one life. Stop being such a cunt.” The album’s title track follows and we dive headfirst into Lewca’s world of punk rock guitars and cornershop breakbeats.
Named for the writer/director of infamous 1995 film Kids, “Harmony Korine” is a wonderfully accurate recount of what growing up was like for those of us fortunate enough to survive childhood in the 80s and 90s. “A Million Things” adds a bit of 70s funk to the party as the singer drops a stream-of-consciousness monologue in which he contemplates late chain smoking comedian Bill Hicks as the son of God.
“Everyday Struggle” rides a cool blues/hip-hop groove in the verse before the dropping on the song’s fantastic hook, courtesy of guest vocalist Oh! Paulo. The record takes a more serious turn for the melancholy “Forget My Name”. In the verse Lewca delivers a wistful soliloquy from the depths of depression before featured singer Victory Flow offers some Aloe Blacc-style soul in the chorus.
We get back to the houseparty for downbeat dance jam “Incredible”, and then to the basement for the lo-fi alt-rock/rap of “The Love Within” and the indie-rocker “Radio Gigolo ”. “Golden God” and “A Song” offer two of the record’s most experimental moments. On the former a dubstep bass backs up Lewca’s signature drunken freestyle. The latter is a schizophrenic tirade that comes off at first like a tongue-in-cheek throwaway, but by the end we have our fingers on the rewind button.
“I Fell in Love with a Serial Killer” is a fun bit of surf rock morbidity. The record closes on mash-up meditation “Smoke in the Air”. If late-greats Leonard Cohen and The Prodigy were ever to have collaborated, it would have probably sounded something like this fabulously eclectic mix of dissonant guitar, EDM bass and spoken-word introspective lyrics over a cyber-punk beat.
Check out the excellent Friday Night Rockstar in its entirety below, listen on your favorite streaming service or download your own copy at Bandcamp. You can also hear the songs “Everyday Struggle” and “Friday Night Rockstar” on the Deep Indie Dive playlist. Follow the links below to connect with Lewca.
